"This Northwest Style Sour Ale is a blend of soured Triple, Blonde Quad and Golden ales that have been refermented with the fresh pressed juice of white wine grapes. The beer spent more than six months of lactic fermentation and aging in small oak barrels. 9.2% ABV" - Raccoon Lodge website

Pours a slightly murky orange with an off-white head that settles to a film on top of the beer. Foamy rings of lace line the glass on the drink down. Smell is of grain, fruit, and some funky aromas. Taste is of grain, grapes, and funk with an acidic finish. This beer has a good level of carbonation with a crisp mouthfeel. Overall, this is a very good wild ale with a nice grape flavor to it. (438 characters)

A: The beer is slightly hazy golden yellow in color with some hues of orange and faint hints of visible carbonation. It poured with a thin off white head that quickly died down, leaving a small patch of bubbles in the center of the glass and a thin collar around the edge. S: Moderate aromas of grapes are present in the nose - its feels like you are standing next to a wild grape vine in the late summer when the smell of ripened grapes is present in the air. T: The taste starts off with flavors of sourness and oak and transitions into flavors of grapes that linger into the finish and lend a bit of sweetness. No alcohol is noticeable. M: It feels light- to medium-bodied on the palate and has a low to moderate amount of carbonation. O: This is an interesting beer that tastes both sweet and sour. It's quite drinkable because the alcohol is well hidden from the taste.

Pours a moderate golden color with a thin white head. The nose brings forward some lactic and acetic sourness as well as a pretty fresh grape nose. A bit of funk. The taste loses the grapey character and has more of a mild fruit flavor to go along with a pinch of oak as well as both lactic and acetic characteristics. Mouthfeel is dry but not overly so with good sourness. All around, a pretty good sour but doesn't live up to their Apricot. (505 characters)

not as intense as I wanted it to be, nor as sour. pale cloudy yellow color, smallish white head without much retention. smells like artificial purple grape candy when I really sniff hard, but smells just like a sweeter sour when I don't try so hard. wheat malt, grape must, and lactic acid are all evident. I taste a lot of oak in this, sweet and earthy, and it pairs well with the sweetness of the grapes. however, the fruitiness takes a lot away from the sour properties, which really only come in as acidity on the finish. not a lot of tartness or funk or pep to this, and it feels a little dull as a result. it could stand more carbonation too, to lighten up the fruit. I think the concept is good and the flavors are good, if a little muted, but the overall product is in need of a refinement. it is a full step or two below the elite sours on the market, but still a quality brew. this bottle had a little age on it, so maybe it hasn't held up super well. will need to try fresh to compare. (996 characters)

Bottle: Poured cloudy muddy light brown color ale with a small bubbly head with no retention. Aroma of funky barnyard notes with some tart notes with some vile unrefined grainy notes. Taste is also quite a mess with loads of harsh grainy notes with some vile barnyard notes. Body is full with no carbonation. Either this bottle was off or I clearly don’t get this beer. (371 characters)

Cloudy and hazy with a ridiculously nice looking head on top of it. About three fingers of tan came up over the top and settled down still to about a fingers worth after a few moments. Rich side glass lacing just stuck and clung to the glass with every swirl, really just pushing the envelope on this one. No visible sedimentation that I could see.

Rich notes of tart grape skins, cherries and loads of funk, some light spiciness and a decent touch of oak. lots of dark fruit, tart funkiness and a nice earthy, woodsy like smell blending together very nicely on this one. Silk like smoothness, and the finest carbonation bubbles, really well done in that regard. ;ots of sour in here right up front with frapes and light lemon like citrus taking over. Rolling through some nice notes of cherry then came over me. Decent funkiness in through the middle and the finish, but it was actually almost blended out by a cherry like sweetness and more hints at a sugary touch. A nice sipper none the less and I tried to cherish every last drop of this one. (1,049 characters)

A: The pour is a clear dark golden-amber color with a big white head on it.

S: Quite a bit of sweet grape juice to the nose, but plenty of lactic tartness comes through as well. The oak is not all the prominent, I must say.

T: A good amount of lactic acidity, but not quite as biting as some of the other Cascade beers (especially Apricot or Sang Rouge, for example). The grapes are really up front and slightly sweet with a mild buttery chardonnay quality (in a good way).

M: The body is a bit heavier than I was expecting, and the carbonation is plentiful as well.

D: Not the best of Cascades beers, but quite good none-the-less. I still had no problem enjoying my sample. (705 characters)

The beer pours a light golden amber color with not much head at all. The smell is light with a tart sweetness to it. I am getting a wine note along with a light tartness. The taste is light and sour, but it's not a vinegar sourness. I am getting some wine along with a lemon juice like sourness. There is a slightly herbal funk in the finish. This is a nice sour and it hides the abv quite well. (443 characters)

Big thanks to foofaa for sharing this at my birthday tasting, enjoyed chilled from the 750 in a mug.

The color is a golden hued hazed looking liquid with snowy white cap that provides spotty lace. The smell is sour and vinous with some white grape sweetness and slight honey like odor with gentle compliment of subtle citrus notes. The feel is very good with big sour note up front with almost acetic acid but more citric with lemony sour tinge and juicy sweet vinous aspect with nice amount of carbonation giving a little impression for such a big beer.

The flavor is great with mild sweet grape and light lemon tinges with gentle mix of both sour and sweet and mild tropical perhaps juicy pineapple and oak in the middle with some slight pepper and tea-like astringent flavor with a nice reminder of the wine barrel mixed with the sour elements and light malt flavor. I loved this, it is a very drinkable and unique beer. I would love to try it again. Thanks again Foofaa for this treat! (993 characters)

I figured I sat on this one long enough. Last night of a 12-day vacation, I cooked up some chicken stir-fry and popped this sucker open. Decanted into a Cascade goblet, The Vine was a slightly hazy liquid, golden amber, lively bubbling carbonation, capped off with a small white head; minimal retention and no real lacing to speak of. Aroma is tart with grapes and stone fruit, lactic and woody. Very tasty, sour fruits--grape, apricot, lemon, orange--but not bracingly lip-puckering, which was nice, lactic and well-tamed acetic notes, Chardonnay, grass, subtle oak in just the right quantity, sweet biscuity malts in the background. Medium-bodied, a bit sticky, nearly no alcohol taste or burn. Yep, this was one drinkable wild ale, and it paired brilliantly with my dinner. I have another bottle that I'll let sit for a while longer. Cheers! (895 characters)

2013 project. 9.30% ABV. 750ml brown glass bottle with hood-and-wire (unbranded, gold) cap over a cork purchased directly from Cascade and served into a Lost Abbey teku in high altitude Castle Rock, CO. Reviewed live. Expectations are high given the brewery.

Served cold and allowed to warm over the course of consumption.

No bubble show forms as it's poured.

This is a mess to pour - the cork was impossible to remove by hand, so I tried pliers - which broke the cork in half. A churchkey removed the cork, but beer quickly surged out, spilling over my bar. Definitely seems overcarbonted especially when you consider it's been aging over a year at cellar temp.

HEAD: Pours a two finger wide off-white colour head - fizzy and violent as hell - which reduces inside 1 minute, though for about half of that it's only fizzing on one side....odd.

After completely disappearing, the head rekindles itself, fizzing back into life for 2 minutes more (still on only one side of the glass) before dying again - completely of its own volition. I've never seen anything like this.

No lacing sticks to the sides of the teku.

BODY: Body is a vibrant lively brilliant gold with blond and copper hues. The carbonation bubbles are magnificent in this colour of body. You could photograph this beer for a magazine cover; it looks incredible. I can't wait to try it.

That said, it does seem direly overcarbonated. But it's a unique appearance - both in terms of head and (admittedly less so) the body. It's definitely alive, but no yeast particulate is visible.

AROMA: Lovely. Gorgeous blond malts, impeccable white oak tones, white grapes with an ideal sweetness/dryness balance, golden malts, Belgian pale malts, clean crisp full evocative barley, a kiss of juicy fruity hop notes, and marvelous wild yeasts as well as bacterial notes - lactobacillus sure (albeit seemingly not as much as in Cascade Kriek), and ample sourness - about a 6-7/10. There are also some barrel sugars and grape skin notes. I also find a note redolent of pinesol, which works surprisingly well here.

This amazing aroma reminds me of the best Belgian blond sours I've encountered. Really incredible stuff; I'm dying for the first sip. It's mild in strength, but boy is it evocative. The dryness/sweetness balance seems ideal.

TASTE: Blond malts, golden malts, and Belgian pale malts comprise the easily influenced neutral foundation. White grapeskin enters in the early second act, bolstered by the building presence of lacto-induced sourness as the second act progresses. Wild yeasts and bacterial notes complement the lactobacillus well, evoking a truly alive, wild brew.

The moderate tartness of the grape coupled with the intrinsic grape flavours doesn't really fit into this flavour profile as well as I anticipated given the aromatics, but it doesn't feel out of place per se - perhaps just a bit too intense. In a beer so subtle, those notes are noticeably dominant, and while they don't break the cohesion of the beer, they do distract from the gestalt build as a whole.

Disappointingly, the sourness is a relatively mild 5-6/10 in terms of intensity. Cascade's other more sour beers (e.g. Cascade Kriek) offer more depth of flavour, but this beer has good flavour amplitude and duration.

The guiding oak tone throughout the beer is lovely, and bolsters its already impressive cohesion. The neutral barrel sugars found in the aroma are largely absent here, though I do think the beer's balance errs a bit too far on the sweet side. Dryer grapes might fix this minor issue.

What shocks is the absence of alcohol presence, which is damn impressive at 9.30%; how does Cascade produce these high-alcohol sours without seriously compromising balance?

Overall, it's a very likeable flavour profile with some excellent elements, but doesn't quite come together the way a world-class beer would.

TEXTURE: Crisp, overcarbonated, and smooth, with a perfect balance of dryness/wetness. Medium-bodied. Towards the back end, it's fairly smacky on the palate, but I'd love more of that along with more sourness. Thickness is apt for the flavour profile. Fairly acidic.

Good overall presence on the palate. This texture supports the flavour profile well and feels naturally complementary, but it's not a perfect marriage of texture to taste; it could be improved.

OVERALL: As it warms, I do pick up some neutral barrel sugars and some lambic-esque cereals/grains right on the finish, which aren't particularly welcome. This is a very drinkable enjoyable sour from Cascade, and the discerning drinker will be impressed by how well it hides its ABV. That said, Cascade brews world-class beers, but this isn't one of them. A good-but-not-great sour that isn't worth its high pricetag outside of its state of origin, The Vine is a beer I doubt I'll return to but that might be incredible with serious age on it. More solid work from one of the USA's best sour producers.

Thanks to Exiled for sharing this bottle. It was part of a great tasting that included seven bottled Cascade sours.

The beer pours a hazy medium-yellow with a white head. The aroma is white wine and ginger ale. The flavor is heavy on the white wine with some herbs including rosemary and ginger. Medium mouthfeel and medium carbonation. (337 characters)

A: Pours a dark yellow/brownish color with a small off-white head, slightly fizzy. The head leaves behind a thin layer on top. Nice lacing on the sides.

S: Nice sourness on the aroma with plenty of white/green grapes. There is a bit of must/barnyard/brett with some faint oak as well. The sourness comes out a bit more as it warms along with a bit of green apple.

T: Very tasty, nice blend of grapes, green apples, and a little pear with a nice tart/sourness. Not as funky as the aroma, very faint bretty component in the flavor profile. The oak shines through a bit more as it warms.

M: Light to medium bodied, nice tart/sourness. A nice level of carbonation, made it very easy to drink.

O: Another solid wild from Cascade. This along with Sang Noir were fantastic. Look forward to trying their other beers. (836 characters)

750ml corked and caged offering poured into a snifter. The brew appears a clear pale golden color with a thin white head that produces spotty lacing. A swirl revives a yellowish finger back to the surface.

The aroma opens with notes of white grape juice and funk. Some cheese, oak and wheat blend with a lemony tartness across the nose. A contrasting sweetness almost like vanilla is noted when swirled.

The flavor is tart and lemony. Some cheese, funk, oak and white grape juice blends in with a grainy wheat aspect that is dry and fresh. Overall the feel of this is like lemony sweet tart candy.

This is a medium bodied brew with a light amount of carbonation. It displays a mild tingle of alcohol character and warmth. Overall a unique wild that I thought was interesting and very easy drinking. I would get this again. (825 characters)

The beer is light golden with a small white head. The aroma brings funk, stone fruits, yeast. Sour funk and apricots with a bit of a kick in the finish. Great feel with alcohol content well hidden. Light acetic finish. Pronounced apricots throughout. Very good. (325 characters)

A solid pour into my 25cl tulip glass produces a three-finger thick, lightly tan colored head. The head leaves a nice layer of lace on the sides of the glass as it slowly subsides. The beer is a pretty, red-stained, copper color that shows a bright copper-gold color when held up to the light. The aroma smells quite sweet, with honey notes, a floral white-grape fruitiness, plus other aromatic notes of kiwi, ripe honeydew melon and ripe green apple note. Much of the sweetness that I noticed at first actually is contributed by the huge, aromatic ripe fruit character. The ripe fruitiness is almost too much here.

As I expected from the aroma, this beer is quite dry with very little sweetness. The tartness is not overly aggressive here, in fact much of it I would guess comes from the wine grapes, though there is certainly a lactic component here. This has a tropical fruit like note here that is I find in white wines at times. The finish has a bit of astringency and tannins from oak character, there is also a touch of heat from the alcohol, but this actually hides the alcohol pretty well for its strength. I am curious what grapes were used here, with the oak it can remind me of chardonnay, but the ample fruitiness reminds me a bit more of Sauvignon Blanc or Gewurztraminer. Floral tropical fruit notes with quite a bit of ripe melon are noticeable and while not as apparent as in the nose, still manage to be noticeable despite the lack of accentuating sweetness. Spicy, astringent oak adds some structure and bite to the finish that adds balance to the up front tartness and expressive dry fruitiness.

This is a far departure from the Sang Royale I had the other day. It doesn't have nearly the finesse or balance that that one had, but it is still pretty tasty. An interesting beer, I can see this appealing quite a bit to some people, but I don't seem to be one of those people unfortunately. (1,910 characters)

S: Great pure nose of lactic acid, direct and full. I also get a lot of lemon and some orange peel.

T: Heavy amount of lactic acid soaked musty fermented lemon. The underlying Belgian ale fruitiness comes out a lot more as the beer warms up bringing yellow apples and sourdough bread. Very Tempation-like.

M: High acidity, almost gets acrid at the finish, very dry and puckering. Extremely clean/no funk.

D: A sipper, the high acidity gives me no choice. I liked the beer, in the end though I think I wanted a little sugar/fruit to counterbalance the acid. I know there's grapes, but they're hard to find. A solid beer, interesting to try, but at $20 there are plenty of other AWA's and Cascades I'd rather get. (843 characters)

A deep apricot orange body, with some nice yellow hues along the edges. Lots of noticeable carbonation coming up in the middle, but not as frequent as some of the best lambics I've had. No head presented when pouring, and just barely the thinnest pencil head of a collar getting repopulated while sitting.

Palate comes a bit wet, but with playful carbonation. Very light bodied flavors of tart apple and grape. Cider and crisp juice on the palate with much of the flavor in the front of the mouth. Minimal tartness and a lacking sense of any depth though. There's a hint of mild funk on the aftertaste though that brings more enjoyment.

Overall it's a neat beer, but it's lacking a bit and may be past it's prime. It's fruit composition though is nice, but it also reminds me a bit too much like cider which I am not the biggest fan of. Still decent. (1,066 characters)

Its color is yellow with a tint of gold. The head is small, though the lacing it gives off is good. The nose is a pleasant note of soured white grapes. And it gets better in the taste. So smooth, so grapey. It tastes like someone fresh pressed some white grapes into a sour base beer and this is the final result. There is a touch of vinegar in this fairly sour grape beer. All in all, it's another great package delivered by the folks of Cascade. And to think that I've hesitated to pull the trigger on a bottle of any of their products.... (583 characters)

Pours a clear, bright golden colour, with a hazy, light-weight body. Head is white, and forms some firm, frothy contours atop the beer. Looks decent.

Aroma is immediately dusky and bretty. Apple characters with sharp citrus, astringent bite and a slight vinous tone. Not a lot of straight oak. It's perhaps not as big as it might have been, but it's still very complex.

Light grape juice on the front of the palate melds with more citric bite. Mid-palate has a husky bone character, giving a crisp, pronounced but rather plain Brett note. Finish is clean and dusty, with a ping of acidity that resonates to an aftertaste of pear skin.

Feel is clean and light. Very nice indeed.

The acidity is a little hard to take after a while, meaning it feels somewhat unbalanced. Despite this, it's a good wild ale, and one worth seeking out. (886 characters)

Pours bright gold with a huge beautiful frothy head. The retention is excellent, and there's a surprising amount of lacing on the glass.

The aroma is of sugary grapes with some oak. I'm not sure about the grapes used in this, but it reminds me of Riesling or Muscat. There's a low level of lactic character, but a very low level of tartness. It's sugary and sweet. The flavor is better than the aroma suggested. The taste is sweet with notes of ripe white grape skins and a little musty barnyard. Again, Muscat comes to mind. There's a bit more tartness here than I expected from the aroma. Some oak notes and spices are present. The finish is dry and slightly tart with sugary grapes. No hops or alcohol are noticeable.

The beer is light bodied with good carbonation and a dry mouthfeel.

I was hoping this would be tarter and sourer. I have a few more bottles of this and I'm interested to see how it develops over time. (924 characters)